Fondants are soft, paste-like sugar masses that are used either by themselves for producing various confectionery items or as a filling or a glaze for food products and semi-luxury foods. To prepare a fondant, sucrose, glucose syrup, invert sugar cream and/or sugar alcohols and water, for example are used. The mass is cooked and then processed through vigorous kneading and rapid cooling to form a soft paste. Flavors or food coloring can then be added. Fondant is usually prepared through supersaturation of a sucrose solution. An excessive quantity of sucrose is dissolved in hot water, causing the sugar to remain dissolved when the solution cools, thereby forming a supersaturated solution. If seed crystals are added to a supersaturated solution, the dissolved sucrose crystallizes out. If the solution is not stirred, the sucrose forms large crystals that create a crunchy, rough texture of the fondant. However, if the solution is vigorously stirred or kneaded during crystallization, fine crystals form that create a smooth texture of the fondant.
It is generally acknowledged that the sweetness of food elements plays a very important role in the palatability of food products. Food products or semi-luxury foods that have a high sugar content, i.e., a high sucrose content in particular, are therefore especially preferred by consumers due to the high sweetening power thereof. Sucrose, however, is high-glycemic. A high content of high-glycemic carbohydrates is known to lead to a rapid rise in blood sugar levels. This can lead to health problems, such as obesity, insulin resistance or diabetes. Attempts are therefore increasingly being made to reduce the sucrose content in food products or semi-luxury foods. On the one hand, this can be accomplished by means of sugar substitutes. However, many sugar substitutes do not have the sweetening power of sucrose, for example. Therefore, intensive sweeteners are often used in addition when needed. With intensive sweeteners, the problem exists that many are not thermally stable or have a different flavor profile than sucrose, such as a bitter or astringent aftertaste.
Fondant is often used for glazing baked goods or deep-fried pastries, such as doughnuts. If a sucrose-based fondant is used in this case, the storage stability or shelf life of the pastries is very limited, since sucrose acts hygroscopically and the glaze therefore becomes sticky during storage. Besides fondants made of sucrose, fondants made of trehalose are also known in the prior art. Because of a high water content, however, trehalose as a solid tends to clump and is therefore disadvantageous in processing. Furthermore, trehalose crystallizes very coarsely in fondant, thereby causing a disadvantageously rough texture of the glaze.